The actor and artist Edward Akrout—who played a Ukrainian art professor in Bitter Harvest, a 2017 film about the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s 1932 Holodomor famine against Ukraine—is launching a Ukrainian art festival, called Kyiv Art Sessions, in London, this weekend (28-30 June).
Among the 27 participating artists are Gamlet Zinkivskyi, a street artist from Kharkiv, and the Feldman Sisters, known for their Surrealist-style art.
The opening night will culminate with a DJ set by the composer Andriy Kyrychenko dedicated to the late Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko, who has become a symbol of artistic freedom.
On 29 June, another Kharkiv native, the photographer Sasha Maslov, will make an appearance for a book signing and an interview with Akrout. A solo show by Oleksandr Dubovik, a 93-year-old multi-disciplinary artist and art theorist, who defied Soviet cultural strictures, will open on the same day. Dubovik’s father, a poet, was executed in 1941.
A work by Oleksandr Dubovik
After Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Akrout created Art Shield, a nonprofit organisation to support “art in crisis”. He tells The Art Newspaper that he was spurred by guilt for not immediately recognising the significance of Russia’s actions against Ukraine, which he saw unfold when he began filming Bitter Harvest in December 2013.
“I was thrown into the middle of very transformative events happening in Ukraine, while doing a film about Ukrainian national identity and the subsequent genocide that Stalin had done,” Akrout says. “Even though I was exposed to all this, I think I failed to understand in many ways the real struggle for Ukrainian national identity”.
In retrospect he describes it as “very similar to Ireland” (he has Irish roots) and the country’s struggle to break free from England. “When the full-scale invasion [of Ukraine] happened, I felt a certain level of guilt because I was one of the people who didn’t see it coming. I didn’t believe that it would happen, and when it did, it was quite a shock, and I felt compelled to do something.”
During a visit to Ukraine in autumn 2022, he saw Kyiv residents attending theatres in candlelight due to the Russian bombardment. He has also traveled to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and saw how Gamlet Zinkivskyi’s street art was appearing in areas recently liberated from Russian occupation. “I saw how troops were inspired by his work on their way to the frontline,” Akrout says.
Zinkivskyi has designed labels for a red wine called Deocoupage, which is made in Izium from grapes grown during the occupation and harvested after the liberation. The wine, priced at $1,000 per bottle, is being sold to raise money for Ukraine; it wil be available at the festival.
Akrout, who has also exhibited as a visual artist, says the war and his work with Ukrainian artists has made it clear that “in times of need people need art even more.”
Old Sessions House, an 18th century courthouse where the event is taking place, was restored by Sätila Studios, run by Akrout’s friends who have allowed him to use the entire space for Kyiv Art Sessions.
Akrout says he is “not interested in artists because they are in Ukraine, or because they are in a conflict zone or a war zone.“ Rather, he says: “we are interested in artists because we deem them to have a potential to be part of art history” who “happen to be in this time and place in the world.” Presenting them in this way “can create empathy” without making viewers feel like they are “being interrogated on their geopolitical knowledge, but they are coming to meet an artist, coming to see some work, and then as a human being they can connect to something.”
